


Ducklings and Dire Circumstances

by ant5b



Series: Making Up for Lost Time [2]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: AU, Family Feels, Slice of Life, Uncle-Niece Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-01-08 11:40:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12253692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ant5b/pseuds/ant5b
Summary: If Scrooge had been involved in Webby's life from the beginning.





	1. Chapter 1

“No one wants her.”

Scrooge was silenced mid-refusal. His fingers remained stiff around the edge of the door to his study, already partially open before him in an aborted attempt to escape and end the conversation with his housekeeper. He turned back around at a glacial pace.

 _“What?”_ Scrooge said, softer than he meant to.

Beakley, usually ironclad in her composure, was in disarray. There were shadows beneath her eyes and her sweater was rumpled, as if she’d yanked it on without thought in her hurry to get out of the clothes she’d worn to the funeral.

“Alexgander’s family,” she explained and how the shadows in her face deepened at the mention of her son-in-law. “No one _wants_ her. That’s what they told me, every single one of them.”

Scrooge watched with some alarm as Beakley’s expression contorted in fury, her hands tightening into fists at her sides. “She’s a _child,_  now fatherless, _motherless-"_ Her voice came precipitously close to breaking, and she stopped speaking.

“Bentina,” Scrooge started to say, but didn't know how to continue. All too suddenly he was reminded of the empty, endless days following Della’s disappearance, of the mansion’s oppressive, suffocating silence. 

Inhaling sharply, Beakley looked back at Scrooge with her features once more under control. “I won’t say it’s without risk,” she said roughly. “I’ve reached out to some old contacts and we still don’t know what happened in Belgrave, or what their mission was, and I worry that someone might come after Webbigail.”

Scrooge moved away from his study, back toward the sitting room he had been in such a hurry to flee.

Beakley followed him to the doorway in silence.

Sitting on the carpet with a lost, vacant expression was Webbigail Vanderquack, the young duckling who had become the unwitting topic of their discussion. Her eyes were red and she was still dressed in her somber funeral clothes. She was quietly fiddling with an action figure.

All at once, Scrooge was struck by her loss and Beakley’s desperation. It was enough to jar him from his torpor of the last five years.

“She’ll be safe here, if nothing else,” Scrooge said at last.

“Scrooge?” Beakley said, the rare use of his first name lancing through him more sharply than the genuine shock in her voice.

He shrugged, acting aloof and leaning against his cane. “This mansion's equipped to fend off the likes of the Beagle Boys, Glomgold and his ilk, and the occasional vengeance curse or two. It can handle a F.O.W.L. goon now and then."

Beakley saw through him, of course she did, but she spared an old man his pride. She still smirked at him, though dampened by the pall of grief, it lacked her usual fire.

Scrooge watched her enter the sitting room and scoop up her granddaughter, smiling gently as Webby blinked at her tiredly. “Hello, darling. Ready for some rest, are we?” Beakley asked her.

Webby yawned, wrapping her small arms around her neck.

Scrooge faintly heard her murmur, “Yes, Granny,” muffled against Beakley’s sweater. He remained in the doorway as Beakley carried her out, briefly making eye contact with the sleepy-eyed child as they passed by.

He managed a small smile, though the duckling only watched him with an expression of tired curiosity before her grandmother delivered her deeper into the mansion and to one of its many guest rooms. Soon to become a permanent room. 

Finally alone, Scrooge sighed and made to turn off the light. But something on the floor caught his eye, and he entered the sitting room to find Webby’s action figure, a superhero of some sort. A smile rose to his beak of its own volition, and he carried the toy out of the room with him.

He could give it back to the girl in the morning as an excuse to properly introduce himself. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://mighty-ant.tumblr.com/)  
> Check out my DuckTales podcast [here](http://amorespatospodcast.libsyn.com/)

Since before he was a young shoeshine in Glasgow, Scrooge had always risen with the sun. 

For many, many years, being awake earlier meant getting to work longer, which meant he’d have more money to send home and a greater chance of someday making his fortune. But those days of living in cramped tenements and sleeping under the stars were far behind him, replaced by his four poster bed and hours spent in tedious board meetings. 

But some habits die hard. 

After waking at the crack of dawn Scrooge would shower and dress and be downstairs by seven to eat whatever breakfast Beakley saw fit to force upon him that day, always insisting he didn’t eat enough. From there he’d be at the office until six, though if he was lucky he could escape back to the mansion by four. 

However, it was summer now, which always made getting out of bed that much harder. 

Donald and Della’s birthday was at the very beginning of June, the whole month of which he was nearly rendered completely useless. He rarely left the mansion then, sleep fitfully, and wouldn’t eat at all if it weren’t for Beakley looming over him at every meal. 

It was well into July now, and  Scrooge’s attempts at making something of himself were no longer completely ineffectual. But his left knee would ache fiercely like it never did during the chill of the winter months, and with one glance at the glimmering dawn, promising another gorgeous summer day, his mood would be shot. 

This morning, Scrooge wasn’t downstairs until almost nine, to his mounting vexation. His knee twinged to the tune of his heartbeat, and the bright sunlight glimmering through the mansion’s many wide windows grated at the migraine building behind his eyes. He was so wrapped up in his frustrations that he had little room to think of anything else, and was thus appropriately startled to find a stranger sitting at his dining table. 

It took Scrooge a moment to reconcile the young duckling in a pretty pink dress picking absently at her porridge with the tired, somber one in black from the night before. 

Her presence left Scrooge feeling wrong footed, in a way he’d never believed possible within the walls of his own home. He ended up spending far too much time dawdling in the entryway of the dining room, clutching his cane with both hands, and feeling absurdly afraid of approaching the child.  

The door to the kitchen swung open and Scrooge forced himself to actually enter the room. He made his way to his usual spot at the head of the table as casually as he was able. 

Beakley entered bearing a tray with his breakfast, looking much more her usual self. And acting like her usual self as well, judging by the knowing onceover she gave him even as he tried to school his expression. But Beakley didn’t miss a thing, especially not the furtive glance he directed at the duckling beside him before taking a seat. 

She chuckled. “Did you forget she was here?”

“I dinnae forget anything!” Scrooge blustered, even as Beakley poured his tea with a perfectly neutral expression. A sure sign that she was humoring him. 

“How is the lass, anyway?” Scrooge asked quietly, lifting his teacup to his beak. 

“You could ask her yourself,” Beakley replied easily, preparing her own cup of tea. 

“Er…”

“Webby, look who’s finally awake!” Beakley said louder to grab her granddaughter’s attention, a smirk in her voice even as a smile gentled the sharp cut of her beak. “We were beginning to think you’d sleep the entire day away, didn’t we, dear?” 

Scrooge scowled, but Webby hardly so much as looked up from her breakfast. At this he paused in the middle of spreading marmalade on his toast, glancing over at Beakley in slight consternation. 

Beakley shared his expression of disquiet, though hers was smoothed away in a businesslike fashion. 

“Webby, if you’re going to play with your food rather than eat it, why don’t you go get cleaned up? And after that, how does a tour of the mansion sound?”

The duckling glanced up briefly from the porridge she’d been listlessly stirring, shrugging slightly. 

Beakley clapped her hands together with finality. “Splendid. Hurry now, dear, and Mr. McDuck will show you around once you’re back.”

Scrooge choked on a mouthful of tea. 

Only Webby looked at him in concern as she climbed out of her chair. He was still coughing and pounding on his chest by the time the duckling left the dining room, and he turned his baleful, watery gaze on his housekeeper. 

Undisturbed, she sipped her tea with perfect calm and poise. 

_ “Beakley,” _ he sputtered hoarsely, “what’s this nonsense about me giving a tour?”

“Well, Mr. McDuck,” Beakley said in that brisk, no nonsense tone that he always admired when it wasn’t being directed at him, “I’m sure you know that I have a full day of errands to run —”

“I’ve got a  _ business  _ to run!”

“You and I both know you won’t be going to the office today, Mr. McDuck,” Beakley retorted without kindness or cruelty, but matter-of-factly. 

Scrooge scowled, looking away. Knowing how much he hated pity, imagined or otherwise, Beakley pressed on with her usual tact.

“So, I thought rather than pacing the mansion, you could put your energy to good use and show Webby around,” Beakley said, “she will be  _ living  _ here, after all. We can’t have her wandering where she isn’t supposed to, or winding up lost.”

Scrooge grudgingly paused to give thought to the sheer size of the mansion, daunting even for him at times. He then considered the many,  _ many  _ cursed and deadly objects they had lying around the mansion, none of which were the least bit safe for a duckling to stumble onto. 

He could admit, privately, that a tour wasn’t a bad idea. But that didn’t mean he had to take his housekeeper’s abuse sitting down. 

“Why  _ me?” _ he demanded, petulant and fully aware of it. 

Beakley knew surrender when she saw it. 

“Do you see any other layabout trillionaires?” she replied, and ignored Scrooge’s scowl. 

 

 

“This is the map room. You’re not to enter without your grandmother. And this is the northwest library. You’ll need your gran if you want to come in here too.”

Scrooge knew his tour was lackadaisical at best. He was doing little more than opening doors and telling Webby not to go through them. But he couldn’t bring himself to much care, not when he was forced to rely on his cane because his knee was too weak and ached too much to support him on its own. 

At any rate, Webby didn’t seem to mind. She was clinging to a corner of his coat with one small hand, and hadn’t let go since their tour began. Though calling it a tour would be generous. 

An hour had passed and they’d barely covered a third of the mansion, Scrooge’s slow, limping pace a perfect match for the short-legged gait of a five-year-old. 

Feeling like an invalid for relying on his cane and irate at having to do so, Scrooge led them both back downstairs despite the merry hell it played with his knee. But if he wanted to climb the stairs of his own power again, he’d have to give himself a rest. Lest Beakley stick him in a wheelchair like she was always threatening to and really turn him into an invalid. 

He went on to show Webby the TV room, one of the few rooms she was actually allowed in as long as she asked her granny to turn the television on for her and didn’t touch anything in the room. 

The last part Scrooge especially stressed, because for all that Webby remained his silent shadow, he hadn’t missed the wondrous look in her eyes as she took in the swords mounted on the walls and jewels littering the fruit bowls. Though her grief yet lingered, keeping her quiet and subdued, her curiosity was clearly far from daunted.

Scrooge would have to set up precautions, keep things out of Webby’s reach. Most important would be warning Beakley that her granddaughter was a hellion in the making, if she didn’t already know. 

They left the TV room and found themselves at the back of the mansion, in a hallway lined by portraits and photographs, like so many others. With little emotion, Scrooge explained what each one depicted. 

“This here’s a photograph of President Roostervelt and me in Panama... this one’s from when I discovered the lost city of El Dorado...another portrait by that Barks fellow. I’ve only got so many of them because he  _ insisted  _ it’d be honor and wouldn’t be needing any pay—a loon till the end, that one.”

There was a tug on his coat, and Scrooge looked back to see what Webby might want. But rather than speaking, or looking at Scrooge at all, Webby was staring at the sliding glass doors to their right. They looked out onto the pool and offered a glimpse of his expansive grounds. 

Scrooge blinked. “Ah. You’re probably sick of being cooped up all day, aren’t you, lass? Can’t say I blame you.”

It had been a long time since he’d considered how a child would perceive his mansion, with its shadowed corners, high ceilings, and looming portraits. Not since Donald walked out the door with Della’s eggs and never came back. 

Scrooge went to pull open the sliding door, Webby following a step behind. 

“I suppose some fresh air might do us some good—” he started to say, only for Webby to suddenly dart past him. 

She was poised on the pool’s edge, on the brink of jumping in, before Scrooge came back to his senses. “Webbigail!” he barked, an old, forgotten fear seizing in his chest.“Not another step, lass!” He limped over to her as quickly as his leg allowed. “This is no kiddie pool you just jump into willy-nilly.”

Webby looked down, fiddling with the hem of her dress. “I can swim,” she said quietly. It was the first thing she had ever said to him. 

Scrooge’s heart rate had climbed without his realizing, and nervous energy made him speak faster than he normally would have. “Be that as it may, you’re never to go swimming without your granny here. Is that clear?”

Webby nodded, her gaze still averted. 

He let out a long sigh. “But, since we’re out here, we might as well stick our feet in the water.”

It seemed to take Webby a few moments to process what he’d said, but when she did she looked up at Scrooge with more wonder in her eyes than a dip in the pool probably deserved. 

With great care, Webby sat down on the edge, looking down at her feet as she kicked them gently in the water. 

With his finicky leg, it took Scrooge considerable more effort to sit down. Of all his injuries that refused to heal, it had to be the broken leg. 

He was lucky, however. Because Webby wasn’t paying him any mind, he was spared the additional embarrassment of an audience. 

Scrooge was doubly lucky, in fact; he didn’t even have to remove his spats to put his feet in the water because it seemed he’d forgotten to put them on with the fog his mind had been upon waking. Rather than appreciating the serendipity, it only served to remind Scrooge that he wasn’t the man he used to be. 

But Webby was looking at the rings her feet made in the water, and Scrooge resolved himself not to get lost in his black thoughts. 

He must look like quite the picture thoug., Scrooge McDuck, richest duck in the world, sitting on his pool’s edge with his feet in the water and cane beside him. He hadn’t gone outside in nearly a month and here he was, following after a little girl. 

“Do you have any questions?” Scrooge asked, after a few minutes of kicking their feet in the water. “About the mansion?”

Webby shrugged, but craned her head back to look at the mansion, squinting in the sunlight. “Are you a princess?” she asked. 

A startled laugh burst past Scrooge’s beak. “What? No, lass.”

“Oh,” Webby said, sounding a little disappointed. “But only princesses live in castles. My Mummy says so.”

Scrooge faltered. “Ah. Well. Um. I-I’m a different sort of princess, aye? I live in a mansion, not a castle.”

Webby looked back at Scrooge with bright, inquisitive eyes. He was heartened by the thought of having a hand in ridding the blank, sad look from her face, even if she did ask strange and difficult questions. 

“Does that mean  _ I’m  _ a princess too?” Webby asked quietly, looking back down at her feet. 

Scrooge blinked. “Since you’ll be living here, I, uh-I suppose so.”

“Can I get a cool princess name?” she said, looking more eager by the second. Her kicking was beginning to produce splashes. “Like Sword Princess? Or Ninja Princess?”

“Ninja Princess Webbigail?” Scrooge said. “That’s got a nice ring to it.”

Webby’s kicking calmed again, no longer splattering Scrooge’s coat or the pool’s edge with droplets of water. 

The sun was almost perfectly overhead, shining bright in a cloudless sky. Scrooge typically found that warmth grating, these picture-perfect days reminding him of countless birthdays celebrated surrounded by family now scattered to the four winds, standing proud with a hand on the shoulders of his niece and nephew. 

To Scrooge’s surprise, in the little time he’d known her, Webby’s presence had been a balm to the pain that had dulled in the last half decade, but never seemed to leave. As often as he wanted to resume stewing in his own grief and guilt, it had become easy to forget how much he liked children. Beakley likely knew that, and was likely half the reason she’d sicced her granddaughter on him on the first place. 

Growing up, he’d always helped his mother with Matilda and Hortense, amusing them with games and taking them to play in the heather fields.

Then later, bringing Donald and Della into his home when they were little more than children, when Grandma Duck’s farm went through lean times. As the years went by, it had felt like the three of them would be together forever, a family of adventurers. 

He had been so excited to meet Della’s own bairns. 

“Mr. Scrooge?” Webby said softly. 

Scrooge startled slightly, coming back to himself. Webby was looking at him with worry in her wide eyes, and he suspected that it was not the first time she had called his name. It seemed that without meaning to, he’d become lost in his melancholy anyway. 

“Just ‘Scrooge’ is fine, Webbigail,” he said. “Is something the matter?”

“Um.” Webby wrung the hem of her dress between her hands again, a nervous tic that was odd to see in a child so young. “Granny said you have Quiverwing. Can I have her back?”

Scrooge’s mind immediately drew a blank. “Quiver-what? Lass, I’m afraid I don’t—”

Webby’s eyes began to fill with tears. 

Even though she looked down at the pool rather than keep her glassy-eyed gaze on him, it didn’t stop the instantaneous flare of panic within Scrooge. He flailed for a moment, trying to figure out what Webby was talking about, when the memory came back to him as surely as a slap to the face. 

Beakley carrying Webby off to bed just the night before. The action figure the duckling had left behind. That Scrooge had picked up. 

“Och, jings,” Scrooge said, laughing in what he hoped was a casual and convincing manner. _ “That _ Quiverwing! Why didn’t you just say so, lass? She was worried about getting lost on her own, so I let her stay with me for the night.”

Webby’s distraught tears disappeared in the face of her sheer, unabiding joy, an expression which lit up the somber child from the inside out. 

“She was fine company, but I expect it’s high time she went back with you,” Scrooge went on, and made to rise from the pool’s edge. “Shall we fetch her?”

Webby nodded eagerly, on her feet like a shot. “We shall!” she said, more life in her voice than Scrooge had heard to date. 

  
  


“So when climbing the stairs, you’ll want to go left. See this painting here? Of the knight with the flames? That’s how you’ll know you’re going the right way. Ye ken, Webbigail?”

On the journey from the pool to Scrooge’s quarters, the duckling’s energy had begun to flag, despite her great excitement from earlier. Still, Scrooge did his best to teach her ways of getting around the mansion, young though she was. It was even a puzzle to  _ him  _ at times, and he’d built the place. 

They made it to Scrooge’s room, and he opened the door for Webby. She’d marveled over practically everything she’d seen of the mansion, in her own, quiet way, and now was no exception. But there was a sleepy look on her face as she took in his four poster bed and ornate wardrobe. 

Webby’s expression brightened when her gaze alighted on the action figure Scrooge had left on his nightstand the evening prior. She hurried across the room, and climbed onto Scrooge’s bed so as to reach her toy. 

She was hugging it tight as Scrooge made his way over, knee aching like someone had taken a hammer and chisel to it. Climbing those stairs again had been a mistake, but worth Webby’s palpable relief. 

“No worse for wear?” Scrooge asked, a small smile fighting its way onto his face in spite of the pain in his knee. 

Webby sniffed, rubbing her beak and teary eyes. “Quiverwing’s happy cuz she went on an adventure.”

“That she did,” Scrooge said. “Told you she wasn’t lost.” He wondered if Webby might stay put if he sat down to rest his knee, just for a bit. 

“I’ll never lose her,” Webby said seriously, or a five-year-old’s nearest equivalent. “My Mummy gave her to me.”

Scrooge stilled. He looked over at Webby, clutching her hard, plastic toy close to her chest in lieu of a parent’s embrace. When she was older, would she even remember her mother? 

Unwittingly, he thought of the eggs he’d held in his arms, the little nephews he never met. 

He turned away, fighting the way his eyes burned. Through the window he could see his Money Bin far below Killmotor Hill, and he focused on that rather than the punishing ache in his knee keeping time with his heart. 

He was no longer fit company. It was time for the girl to leave. 

“I think it’s best you be off, lass,” Scrooge said as evenly as he could manage. “Do you remember the way to your room?”

He looked back at Webby, only to find her curled up against the pillows of his bed. Even in sleep she held her toy close. 

Something without name welled up in Scrooge’s chest—perhaps grief, or fondness, maybe even fear, or some sick mix of the three—and it took him a handful of seconds to find his voice. 

“Webbigail, lass,” he tried. But the duckling didn’t stir, and Scrooge couldn’t find the will to approach her, to shake her awake so she could toddle off to her own room. 

Instead, he felt his own exhaustion begin to encroach on him like a tidal wave. 

Leaving his cane by the nightstand, he hobbled over to where his armchair sat facing the window. Scrooge dragged it closer to the bed, and lowering himself into it with some effort. Once settled, the strain on his knee eased and he breathed a small sigh of relief. 

His eyes weighing heavy, Scrooge looked over at the slumbering Webbigail. She looked peaceful, half buried in the pillows, and the stone sitting on his heart eased somewhat. 

On the back of his armchair was a blanket Beakley always insisted on placing, and for once he didn’t begrudge her for it. He tucked it around Webby as well as he could while still sitting, unsure if his knee would support his weight anymore.

It was the last thing he did before leaning back and clasping his hands over his stomach. Sleep claimed him not long after. 

 

Beakley would return in a few hours time and find them both still sound asleep.    
  


**Author's Note:**

> If you have suggestions for cute scenarios or future chapter ideas, just let me know in the comments!


End file.
